How To Turn A Legitimate Buyer Into A Pirate In Five Easy Steps

from the ip-in-the-oatmeal dept

As we've mentioned before, it's interesting to watch copyright issues break into the mainstream and get attention from bigger and bigger sources. This time, Matthew Inman used his famous (and widely read) webcomic The Oatmeal to recount the moral quandary he was placed in when trying to watch Game of Thrones. It's hard to get the full effect without the whole comic, so you should really go read it—but here's a preview:

Of course, plenty of people have been saying this for years: the biggest driver of piracy is a lack of legitimate offerings. Unfortunately, the legacy players think (or at least claim) that they are being innovative with their offerings, even as their customers tell them otherwise. Hopefully, as people like Inman continue putting all-too-common stories like this into the spotlight, they will begin to get the message.

Reader Comments

Re: I was doing this 4 hours ago

I feel for HBO. They fund exclusive content that's well done and costs a lot of money to produce. They need to make money off this to produce more content. The shows are good and people are willing to pay money, but the problem is that HBO's business model appears to rely on gaining subscribers. By offering exclusive quality content they've no doubt gained many subscribers, but they can't force everybody to subscribe to cable TV just to watch a certain show.

HBO, what are you going to do about the rest of us who will never again subscribe to cable TV? You're not losing sales due to piracy. You're losing sales because you refuse to sell to a sizable chunk of potential customers. It's ridiculous that we have to beg a company to take our money.